Mending Michael (4 page)

HOLLY

So the douche nugget knows how to apologize.

And he knows I bite the inside of my mouth when I'm nervous. Why does he know that? Unless he doesn't detest me as much as he lets on.

When he'd grabbed me by the wrist though, I thought for sure that he must really hold a lot of resentment towards me. I wanted to quit right then and there. He's hated me since the day I walked in here about three years ago. But I don't
want
him to hate me. Working with him, I thought, would make us friends...at least compatible co-workers. That comment about him drinking all the profits was meant to be a joke, but then, without warning, he was across the bar, grabbing hold of my wrist like he wanted to break it.

And now he apologizes? And makes small talk? Mick Ross is definitely difficult to figure out.

All of a sudden there's a thud at the back door, then a slam. Some drunk lady trips into the second doorway and stumbles into a table.

"Uh...we're closed," I say to her.

"Where is she, Michael?" the girl slurs, her bony hand slides over the side of her short black hair, as if she has a headache and she just now realized that it hurts.

Michael?

Mick eyes her up and down, but otherwise he ignores the woman and returns to the glassware behind the bar.

The girl bumbles closer to the bar and slams a stool forward.

"Whoa, lady," I chide. "Calm down."

"Mind your own fucking business," she orders, using Mick's favorite line.

Snapping my head in Mick's direction, I say, "Friend of yours?"

He gives me a lop-sided smirk—he either thinks I'm funny or being a prick. Most likely the latter.

"I said mind your own fucking business," the girl repeats.

"Charity. That's enough." Mick finally acknowledges her.

"Where's Kenna?" she says.

"None of
your
fucking business." These people really have to find a better comeback.

"Damn fuck it's my business. She's
my
kid, Michael. Not yours."

"And you're not getting her back 'til you get help," Mick says quietly, calmly.

She jams the chair up against the bar again. "I want her back, Michael," she yells, practically sobbing. "She's
my
baby." Climbing onto the stool, she slips on the bottom rung but rights herself and kneels on it, launching herself across the bar, aiming for Mick.

"Whoa," I yell simultaneous to Mick's, "Shit, Charity," as he catches her by the armpits and falls back against a Glenfiddich mirror.

"Fuck," he says as the mirror crashes to the floor. He pushes Charity back and tells her to get out of his fucking bar or he'll call the police.

"You won't call the cops," she challenges.

"Watch me." He picks up the phone beneath the bar and starts dialing.

"No. No," she cries, and using the bar top as her guide, she backs out from behind the bar. "Just give her back, Michael. Please." By the crackling of her voice, Charity sounds desperate.

"Get to rehab and we'll talk." Mick barely raises his voice above a whisper, and he definitely doesn't look at Charity while he talks.

"I can't go back there. Please don't make me," she pleads to his crouching back while he's sweeping shards of glass into a dustpan.

"You know the deal, Charity." He doesn't look at her still. "You don't go back to rehab, I file for permanent custody."

Charity falls back into a nearby chair and shakes her head. "Oh my God," she cries.

"Charity." A soft-spoken, clean-cut looking man walks in through the back door.

"Luke?" Mick questions the short blond guy.

Luke runs his hand over Charity's arm and says to Mick, "I brought her here, Mick. She was trying to hitch a ride to see you, so I just brought her here."

"She's fucked up. Why would..."

Luke holds up his hand to halt Mick. An ironic air of authority tumbles off this stout man.

"I wanted her to arrive here safely. That's all. My chief phoned me when we first got here. Needed to take the call." Luke looks behind the bar and sees the mess. "Charity?"

"Yeah," Mick mumbles.

"I'm sorry, Mick. I should have made her wait for me, but I didn't see the harm. I'm sorry."

"Don't bring her back. Please. You wanna help? Get her to rehab." Mick ends his plea and returns to cleaning up the broken glass.

Luke walks a sobbing Charity out and I watch Mick pour himself a scotch-sized glass of vodka and toss it back. Then I watch him pour another.

"Whoa there, Cowboy. Don't you need to be driving home or something?"

I'm treated to that all-too-familiar glare. When he opens his mouth to speak, I blurt, "I know. Mind my own fucking business."

He chokes back a grumble, but the corner of his mouth quirks.

"Just sayin'." I scoff and reset the stools so they are aligned evenly in front of the bar.

"I live upstairs," Mick says so quietly I almost miss it.

"Oh. Then by all means, drink away."

He chugs another, then says, "But I have to pick up my niece."

I immediately stop straightening up the chairs in the bar and reprimand him. "You are
not
going to put a kid in your car."

"I'm not. I'm putting her in my sister's car."

"The girl who was just here?"

"Yeah."

"You're a fucking lunatic. You can't drive drunk with a kid in your car. You've got, like, what, almost a gallon of vodka in you?"

Mick stills, finally letting it sink in. He runs a hand through that thick dark hair of his and starts kicking inanimate objects behind the bar.

Meanwhile, I start making a pot of coffee. When he realizes what I'm doing, he says, "What the hell? What are you doing?"

First I look at the coffee machine, then I look at Mick. "Making a pot of coffee?" I say rather sarcastically.

"We're supposed to be cleaning up, not making more of a mess."

"Well, duh." Duh? Really? "I thought it'd sober you up."

Mick shakes his head.

I turn the coffee pot on.

"Coffee doesn't sober you up," he snaps, his voice sharp and angry.

"Well then you'll be good and wide-awake when you're giving me directions to your niece's house."

"I'll do no such thing. You think I'm gonna let you pick up my three year-old niece? You don't even know what she looks like." He finishes washing the last glass and begins putting them away. "You'll probably end up kidnapping the wrong kid and get yourself arrested."

"I wasn't going to go without you, you jerk. I was going to drive you there."

"Oh." His face turns a little red, but he turns away from me.

"Did I embarrass you?" I mock.

"Shut up."

While pouring two mugs of coffee, I think about Mick Ross and wonder what he is really all about. There has to be something more that lies beneath his gruff and cool exterior. Then, without invitation, my thoughts go to physically lying beneath Mick and wondering what he must be like in the bedroom—cool, indifferent, angry? Or could he be the total opposite of what he's like in the bar. Warm, sensitive, sensual?

It's when I'm imagining Mick's assaulting lips on my neck that I feel a cool wet sensation crawling over my hand.

"Holly," Mick calls out.

Shit, the milk. "Oh geez." I quickly wipe up the milk I was pouring into my mug and give him the cup with no milk.

"I don't take mine black."

"A thank you would have been nice." As I'm pouring the milk, I continue, "I assumed you took your coffee black. You know, because of your sweet demeanor and all."

When I hear him sigh and see him close his eyes, I think
, He's kind of cute when he's exasperated.
Of course, I don't tell him so.

About an hour later, I'm done mopping the floor, and Mick's done cleaning up behind the bar.

"I can't believe you made me mop the floor," I tell him while he sets the alarm before we leave.

"It's your job." He opens the door, lets me out, and locks the door behind us.

"So, where am I taking you?"

"I'm fine. You don't need to take me anywhere."

I stop in place. When he realizes he's walking through the parking lot alone, he stops and turns around.

"You are not driving with that little girl in the car." At this point, my hands are firmly planted on my hips. "If you do, I'll call the cops."

"Holy Jesus. You really need to start minding your own..."

"Fucking business," I say along with him. "I know. But seriously. You love this little girl?"

I don't wait for an answer, but the glint in his eye says,
With all my heart
.

"Then why the hell would you risk her life by putting her in a car with your drunk ass behind the wheel?"

"I'm not drunk," he says, stepping towards me.

"You're not sober," I say, remaining right where I am, hands still on my hips.

"Sober enough to know you're a busybody." He steps even closer.

"Hanging around old ladies lately?" I laugh. "What guy, or girl for that matter, our age, says
busybody
?" I laugh again. "Dorks, that's who."

He inches forward one last time, and now he's a breath away. "I'll show you what kind of
dork
I am."

His neck is bent and the tip of his nose is now a hair away from mine, but I stand my ground.

"And what girl our age uses the word dork, dork?"

For several seconds, that I am not able to count due to the quickening pace of my heart rate, we stand like that, until finally I push him forward with my palms on his chest. His very lean but muscular chest. "Get the hell in my car. I'm driving you."

His shoulders drop in resignation, but he tosses me his keys and says, "Take mine. The car seat is already belted in."

"Nice car." I get into the small black Kia Forte.

"It's my sister's, but thanks."

I start the engine, and then all of a sudden, I get a whiff of something sweet. Or spicy. Like... Good and Plentys. Surreptitiously, I inch my shoulder across my seat to see if it's Mick. When I breathe in to sniff, I don't realize I'm closing my eyes until Mick blurts, "Are you
sniffing
me?"

Shit. "Um." I just laugh. "You smell like Good and Plentys.”

His eyebrows knit together. "Just drive."

"Can't," I say, putting the car in reverse, but keeping my foot on the brake. "Don't know where I'm going."

"Out of the parking space would be nice," he deadpans, a monotone voice being his popular mode of speaking.

God, he lacks happy emotions.

Backing out of the space and moving forward, I stop at the lot's exit. "Okay. Now where?"

His dimple dips in, indicating he's biting that inner cheek again, and his finger points to the left.

"Cat got your tongue?"

No response.

"Mick?"

MICK

"Sorry. Daydreaming." She doesn't need to know I momentarily slipped into a dirty little thought about her.

"Not daydreaming. Sleeping... 'cause you're drunk."

"Do you
ever
shut up?" I ask her, causing her to drop her jaw before pursing her lips. "Make a right at the next street."

Holly's face glows beneath the passing street lights, and when I see that her pursed lips have now drooped into a frown, my chest aches a little.

"Holly?" I ask, unsure of her reaction.

She has no reaction.

"I'm sorry," I say quietly.

Under the street lights, I see her bottom lip disappear.

"Make a left," I blurt, forgetting she doesn't know the way to Lara's house.

She skids as she turns left.

"Why do you hate me?" Her voice is unusually tiny.

"I just forgot to tell you to turn. I didn't do it on purpose."

"No. Not that, jerk. In general. You don't tolerate me. At all." She doesn't turn to glance at me, but I can hear the disappointment in her words.

Really carefully, I look at her. Gone are her spunky expressions, and in their place, dismay.

"I'm sorry," I repeat, hopefully relaying my genuine attempt at an apology. "I'll try harder... to not be such a dick."

Though the car is only lit by street lamps and the moon, I swear I can see a blush forming on her cheeks.

"Thanks," she responds quietly. And I'll try not to be... such a brat."

"You mean bitch." Damn. I am a dick.

She shakes her head. "Yeah. A bitch."

Why is it so hard to show my nice side?

Do I even have a nice side?

Sometimes I don't think so anymore.

Realizing we missed the turn, I shout, "Shit. We gotta turn around."

Once we pull up in front of Lara's house, Holly asks if she should come in with me.

"No. Just wait here. Thanks."

Fortunately for me, I have a high tolerance for alcohol, because I'd hate to fall with a sleeping Kenna in my arms while carrying her out of Lara's house.

I do fumble with getting her in the car seat, though, because a sleeping Kenna is not a very cooperative Kenna.

"Oh my gosh, she's beautiful," Holly says of my cherubic niece.

"She is," I say proudly. "She's precious."

I kiss Kenna on her little nose after belting her in and get back in the passenger seat.

"Thanks," I whisper to Holly, snapping my own seat belt in place.

On our way back down to Haledon, Holly asks, "You do this
every
night?"

"That's the plan." My half-assed, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants plan, which I have no idea is even a good one.

I can almost hear her reprimanding me before she opens her mouth. "You know...that is so not fair to that little girl."

Resting my head back against the seat, and closing my eyes, I run my hand through my hair and keep it there, leaning my elbow against the window.

"Holiday," I say calmly, "mind your own flippin' business."

"Flippin'?" she asks, noting the change in my F-word.

At the moment, and after recently promising her I wouldn't be such a dick, I figured fuck was suddenly too harsh a word to use on Holly. Plus Kenna may be sleeping, but I make it a rule never to curse in front of her.

Instead of responding, I let the silence and the street lights fill the car, and my thoughts fill my mind.
What the hell am I going to do about Kenna? And how the heck is a single bartender who works until two in the morning going to care for a three-year-old little girl?